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happy industrial water week everybody
Trace Blackmore here the host of the
scaling up H2O podcast the official
place for you to celebrate industrial
water week and as I’ve been talking
about all week this is a really special
week because not only are we celebrating
industrial water week we are celebrating
industrial water week as the association
of water Technologies is having their
annual conference in Grand Rapids
Michigan so I’ve met so many of you at
this conference so far I know there are
several of you out there that I have not
met and it’s my hope that I get to meet
you while we’re all here at the
association of water Technologies
conference now today is waste water
Thursday and we’re going to be talking
about waste water but Thursday is also
the first official day that the awt
really opens up this is is where we have
our General Session in the morning we
have our keynote address and then we all
of our papers all of the reasons that
people come for the awt are here
including the exhibit hall and the
exhibit hall is amazing it is a One-Stop
shop for pretty much any water treatment
vendor anybody that has any sort of
water treatment wears you are going to
find them here and you might find
somebody that could change everything
that you do for those people that are
sending somebody to the awt or any
conference for the first time and you’re
wondering am I getting my money out of
sending that person that’s a great
challenge to have is you have them come
back with something that is really going
to change an issue that you are having
and also I mentioned the papers the
papers are great maybe you have somebody
teach the rest of the company what they
learned at a particular paper great
things going on this week but of course
we are here to celebrate waste water
Thursday and Wastewater is one of those
things that more and more companies are
getting into and we can see that each
and every year when we do Wastewater
training with the association of water
Technologies so it’s a it’s a growing
industry of course there’s so many
people that are in the waste water
industry and maybe that’s an industry
within the industrial water industry
that we really need to do a better job
of letting people know that there are
careers within Wastewater now Wastewater
that doesn’t sound that glamorous but
let me tell you when you can walk into a
plant and you can can figure out what
their issues are and you now just save
them fines or you save them thousands of
dollars in what they had to haul off and
waste or whatever it is you are now
their superhero and it might not seem
very glamorous but trust me when you can
go in there and you take your jar stir
kit and you’re doing all those different
tests and you say okay what we’re doing
is no longer working here’s what you
need to do and you save the day folks
that is amazing and maybe there’s
somebody out there that would be great
for that job and we have never
introduced them to it so that’s why this
week we are making sure that we are
shouting from the rooftops that we have
industrial water as a potential career
and we want to make sure that people
know about that career we talked
yesterday about maybe even going into
school tools and talking about careers
there are all sorts of things that you
can do within your community to find
great people that may not even know to
look for you as a potential employer so
by helping ourselves we are helping this
industry and one water treater at a time
we will raise the bar in everything in
this industry well as far as waste water
goes I will say I’ve had probably some
of my worst experiences my most stinky
experiences my funny experiences and my
most memorable experiences all around
Wastewater I was sharing on episode 318
that I remember one of my first
experiences was going with my father to
a turkey rendering plant and it was the
smelliest environment I have ever
experienced my dad laughed at me and he
said son that’s the smell of money he
really did say that and then that was
now my account to service I remember I
had to take changes of clothes with me
sealed in a trash bag in my trunk if I
didn’t seal them they would penetrate
the trunk and they would be stinky as
well and because of where that plant was
I actually stayed for several days so I
could get service and also we did some
prospecting out there well I don’t know
about you but when somebody comes to
Prospect and say we would love to do
your water treatment and they smell like
a turkey rendering plant well I wasn’t
getting many closes that way so hey
that’s a pun I didn’t even intend so I
had to change my clothes to get the
clothes how about that you heard that
here on waste water Thursday that was my
earliest and first waste water memory
and from that point on I can think of
several items that were I shared earlier
where I came in and I was a hero because
we figured out a better way of doing
something that costs somebody a fine or
not being able to produce something or
they’re they were just sending way too
much stuff to the landfill so lots of
things that we can do within waste water
and today we’re going to go back to
episode 303 where we were talking to Dr
Rakesh about the future of Wastewater
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so I think the majority of Wastewater
that we are that’s created by in
domestic you know sources as well as an
industry it is being treated in a
centralized treatment plant and so what
we have is a a huge network of sewer
lines that are under the ground that
convey the Wastewater from every house
every industry typically it goes into a
centralized treatment plant that is
treating the water and once it treats
the water it is then put into a river or
into a lake or into a some kind of a
water body that can assimilate that
water that huge quantity of water that
we have collected the problem is that
most of the wastewater treatment plants
are emitting their treated water into a
river that ends up in the ocean and that
ends up making salt water and this water
then never comes back from where it came
from so we are actually depriving the
land of the groundwater that is being
used to create the Wastewater
so with that is it your proposal that we
abandon or are eventually rebuild
centralized plants or do away with them
so now we’re treating it at the location
where it’s being created yes I think
that the future of wastewater treatment
is decentralized treatment that is treat
the water in the local area where it’s
coming from and then essentially put the
water back in the ground where it came
from and that is essential that if we
don’t regenerate the groundwater table
then our grandchildren our
great-grandchildren will have no water
to live with and without water there is
no life there is no population there is
no jobs there is no economy and I think
the world has been doing all this time
with the centralized treatment plants of
the sewer lines is taking groundwater
and putting into the ocean as salt water
and it the water never comes back so the
groundwater table has been declining on
on the worldwide scale and there is no
coming back so it is it is basically the
entire world as far as baseball is
concerned is driving on a one-way Street
and some Nations will get to the end of
the street sooner than others because
they have a higher population density
and and some Nations will take longer
time but it is basically expected that
within the next 10 years next decade
that we are living through we’ll see
many many nations run out of water
groundwater table and essentially then
people will have to move and this is
going to generate political instability
as well as chaos in many of those
countries
I’m sure when they’re looking at
separating from a centralized plant to a
decentralized plan it costs them money
what’s an Roi that they can expect
I think that the ROI is going to be you
know highly positive in this case and
and the reason why return investment is
is going to be good for decent price
treatments because by using
decentralized treatment you are getting
a much more reliable system in this case
remember one of the things one of the
central problems we have is centralized
treatment is you’re putting all your
eggs in one basket in essentially so
when that plant is hit by hurricane or
by a tornado or by Rising seawater level
then essentially it gets flooded in
other words when that happens your
entire millions of people with Shoreline
connections are cannot use their toilets
they cannot generate Wastewater because
there’s no plant at the end that is
working in this case and so when you get
natural disasters like earthquakes or
rising sea levels or hurricanes or
tornadoes single plant is going to
affect millions of people at the same
time by having a decentralized system
you have a much more uh a reliable
system at your hands it’s not going to
kick out every house in this case and so
you have a much better chance of
responding in that situation than if a
centralized treatment plan goes belly up
because it has no power or basically it
has not is not capable of running I want
to leave them with the idea that the
technology of wastewater treatment is
Advanced enough today and the technology
of water sensing is Advanced enough
today to be able to do a very good job
on a local level thereby reducing the
rent water consumption and they should
seriously look at reducing the net water
consumption because fresh water on the
planet is running out and if fresh water
runs out at the location that they are
actually you know have their plant their
company cannot operate as they are
operating right now so their existence
is at stake for them their existence is
at stake for them
Skyrim Nation as you know I’m here at
the awt conference all week and so many
people have come up to me and said how
much they like to review previous
episodes so I hope you enjoyed our run
through our vaults of all of the
different episodes that we have well
over 300 episodes I gotta say I’m a
little jealous I wish when I was
starting out in this industry that we
had a resource like the scaling up H2O
podcast it was really difficult to get
information we didn’t really have the
internet no I’m just telling my age we
had books we had people and we really
had to figure out how we were going to
learn more about water treatment that we
weren’t directly exposed to so the great
thing about being a water Trader today
is there’s so many resources out there
there’s so many different ways that we
can learn how to be better water
treaters how we can learn to do
different things and one of those
resources out there is detective H2O a
fun way for us to learn more about water
treatment and today was last year’s
brand new episode and this was an
episode where yours truly offered a
voice to James McDonald’s detective H2O
here’s the case of seeing the Dead
case of seeing the Dead
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as he stood looking out the rain
splattered window of his office in
downtown Waterville Herbert Henry
oxidane P.I cwt cracked a sideways smile
when his black rotary phones spring to
life
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he answered detective H2O here the best
water treater this side of the Ohio
solving water problems drop by drop what
you got Mr oxidane I mean detective
oxidane or h2o whatever your Monica is
this is Charlie Baxter originally from
Savannah Georgia but I now live in
Waterville and I work at Carlisle
industrial Incorporated I got your name
from a friend and I thought I’d drop a
dime on you I see well since you got me
on the blower why don’t you spit it out
I charge by the minute paying cabbage is
no problem if you can come on out here
and solve our problem we have this
process Loop you see and it keeps
getting loaded up with those microbial
Critters I tell you what despite all our
best efforts why don’t y’all come on
down here and I’ll give you the full
scoop all right you’ve hooked me I’ll
get my rust bucket started and be out
your way within the hour either I might
have to fill up the old mirror first
since you’re uphill most of the way and
she gets Mighty thirsty in her old age
fantastic
detective H2O will be ready for you
y’all come on down you hear
as if on demand the day lose of rain
slowed to a light drizzle as detective
H2O pulled to a stop in his Rusty blew
forward
was in his blood and weather like this
always soothed his soul
Charlie Baxter met him at the front gate
and escorted him to his office in the
middle of the plant
the detective had never been here before
a multinational water treatment company
had this account buttoned up for years
it was telling that he was being invited
here now something had them perplexed
and solutions weren’t forthcoming this
is quite the complex operation you have
here Mr Baxter pipes running everywhere
from every direction it seems some water
and some not oh please call me Charlie
and what should I call you detective H2O
was the Bland reply oh of course Charlie
quickly recovered you are Quiet Riot
detective H2O this facility looks like a
bowl of spaghetti in fact people accuse
us of getting Willy Wonka to design it
every nook and cranny has a purpose to
get the final product out the door but
it ain’t an easy task keeping it all
going
and you can take that to the bank
tell me about this process Loop that’s
giving you the headache that you
mentioned on the phone
Charlie looked down at the facility and
said you see the main process Loop
provides cooling water to several
critical processes in the plant it’s a
completely closed loop all clammed up
with no open water to the atmosphere
we had some failures and some popping
and even a heat exchanger upon
inspection all the reports said mic are
microbiologically induced corrosion that
is this comes as no surprise since the
metal samples we took even fell slimy I
see what did you do next you mentioned
taking action on the phone earlier first
we tested the system from microbial
activity and boy did we find them then
we added a non-oxidizing biocide that
seemed to Ward them little suckers off
for a while but they soon came back
we tried a few more times but it was the
same old story it was like a broken
record then we moved to an oxidizing by
side and we flushed the system before
and after we added that bio side that’s
not an easy task with the loop this
large plus we had to add fresh water
treatment chemicals those Critters came
back again
sometimes you can even smell those
suckers in the water just over a month
and a half ago we repeated the oxidizer
drain and flush again and of course we
had to put new water treatment chemicals
in too you can probably guess what
happened after that they seemingly
returned from Beyond the Grave to
resurrect themselves once again that’s
where you come in our experts are out of
ideas
Charlie said dropping his head
the detective I the poor sap and replied
well you’ve got quite the story to tell
there that’s a lot to take in but I’ll
do my best to get this Canary to sing
first what is the chemical treatment
program you use in the main process Loop
nitride now I know where you’re going
with this because we continually see our
nitrite levels drop as them bug counts
keep going up that’s why we also did a
pre-flush prior to adding to oxidizer
since we didn’t want the reaction
between the two becoming part of the
oxidizer demand yes very good nitrate
can be a bug food and we’ll take that
into consideration nitrite is an
excellent Cruise inhibitor and is used
successfully in all kinds of
applications without the issues you are
experiencing we won’t discount its
impact but let’s get the lay of the land
first I need to see our testing logs
disinfection reports and whatever other
details you can show me regarding the
actions you’ve taken
wear an open book around here detective
it’s already laid out on that table Over
Yonder y’all going over there and help
yourself
as detective H2O peruse through the
files he took notes pulled out his near
Abacus calculator to confirm a few
things and peppered Charlie with
questions
anything Charlie didn’t know he pulled
his guys in to answer
Charlie procedurally I can’t poke hoes
in your story
it does appear the disinfections were by
the book with enough oxidizer for enough
time throughout a multitude of
checkpoints in the system to be
effective
in most applications it would have
worked
there’s more to find out though can you
walk me through the system next I want
to see everything from where the makeup
water comes in to the pumps heat
exchangers side stream filters chemical
addition points Vents and drains
not a problem and I know where to just
start this little trip y’all come on now
you hear
Charlie took detective H2O through a
maze of piping stairs and I always
all the time the detective kepa’s eye on
the main process Loop piping and sketch
the process flow diagram as they went
along
they tracked down every tee open the pot
feeder inspected the bag filters Etc
as they stood up what Charlie said was
the end of the road detective H2O glared
at his hand sketched process flow
diagram and said
okay this is the last jump off point
from the main line just above our heads
it’s the same diameter as the primary
flow of the main process Loop quite
large
where does it go
well that’s there for future expansion
plans so we can connect those operations
to the main process Loop it ends just
beyond that wall over there
it ends you say can you show me Charlie
led the way through a door into the next
room where the piping simply ended with
a blind flange
peering up at the stunted piping
detective H2O knew he’d found what he’d
been looking for all along
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so tell me Charlie when you did your
disinfection draining and flushing the
system did you do anything special with
this part of the piping
well no we didn’t as a matter of fact I
really ain’t getting in no mind until
you just brought it up right now I’m
sure it drained with the rest of the
system detective H2O gave his trademark
sideways slightly and settling smile and
proclaimed that’s a dead leg my good
fellow
the what
a dead what
a dead leg
not a zombie apocalypse but an area
within a system with low to no flow it
can be a leg of piping Dead ending like
this one or even an offline system such
as a chiller not only can sediment
slowly collect in these areas but so can
microbiological activities such as
biofilms
because of the lack of sufficient flow
water treatment chemicals cannot reach
far enough into them to be effective
the bugs set up home in these dead legs
safe from your bioscience and
disinfection activities
each time you try to clean the system
they simply waited and re-inoculated the
bulk water all over again I believe this
is our Smoking Gun
a dead leg who’d have thump but what you
say makes sense
I tell you what I’m tired of taking the
fall for these little guys what can you
do about it Detective
in your case I think you need to
disinfect the system one more time
unfortunately but this time the entire
system
if you can’t remove the whole dead leg
you’ll at the very least need to install
a drain line at the end that you have to
open on a regular basis to establish
flow remove any sediment and expose the
piping to the water treatment plus I’m
curious to see what’s inside the pipe it
will need to be cleaned out
let’s walk the system again to make sure
we’re not missing any other such dead
legs and then I’ll work with you to
develop a plan for a thorough
disinfection this time
alrighty then let’s get started we’ll
have them Critters sleeping with the
fishes before we know it
one month
two months six months and a year later
Charlie Baxter called detective H2O to
give him an update on the main process
Loop there was no noted microbiological
activity
detective H2O has saved the day once
again and was paid all the Cabbage he
was due
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in the underbellies and penthouses of
the Metropolis of Waterville where the
boilers percolate and cooling towers fog
there is one man who works tirelessly to
end corrosion stop scale fight low-life
microbes and conserve water
that man is detective H2O best water
treasure this side of the Ohio solving
water problems drop by drop
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came out I can’t tell you how many
people came up to me and said oh what I
can’t even do it now I had to get into
character to do that properly and I was
not in proper character Nation the
scaling up H2O podcast is asking several
things of you this week one is that you
find your favorite piece of equipment of
waste water maybe it is a daf maybe it’s
a dewatering device whatever it is maybe
it’s your jarster what I ask of you now
what the scaling up Nation requires of
you now is for you to take a picture in
front of your favorite piece of
Wastewater equipment and hashtag that to
iww.23 once again that’s
iww 23 that’s where all of us in the
scaled up Nation can really enjoy all
the different pieces of equipment that
we work with and we can see all of The
Smiling Faces that create the scaling up
Nation Nation it’s also a great time if
you have not caught up with all the
industrial water Week episodes you can
go back and listen to pre-treatment
Monday you can listen to boiler Tuesday
you can listen to cooling Wednesday and
of course tomorrow join us where we’re
going to be wrapping up industrial water
week with careers Friday but I’m not
quite done with this episode yet we’ve
been asking everybody each and every day
to make sure that everybody that you
come in contact with knows that this is
a potential industry that they might
actually love not just a job a career
not just something they do but something
they love think about how you got into
the industry and most likely it’s
because someone told you I am asking
everyone finding the scaling up Nation
let’s do a better job this week of
getting the word out there that this is
an amazing industry we know we need to
find good people we are going to be part
of that solution the other thing I’m
going to ask you if you are here at the
awt make sure you come find me I sure
want to meet you and my last thing that
I’m going to ask that you do is that you
find an industry resource that you love
maybe it is the awt where we are at
right now and you volunteer trust me
groups like The awt like the IWC all
these different groups that are
showcased here on the scaling up H2O
podcast they do not happen without
volunteers that means they do not happen
without you and I know what you’re
thinking I don’t have enough to offer to
be a volunteer and trust me that does
not exist get that out of your mind
because we have plenty of work for you
you have certain skill sets that other
people don’t on particular committees
that you can help with now maybe you
don’t have 40 Years of Wastewater
experience but you have social media
knowledge that that person with 40 years
experience doesn’t have so please don’t
think what you can’t do think about what
you can do and do it volunteer today and
of course listen to tomorrow’s episode
for careers Friday happy industrial
water week everybody
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